Monday, June 30, 2014

Adventures in Realism offers an accessible introduction to realism as it
has evolved since the 19th century. Though focused on literature and
literary theory, the significance of technology and the visual arts is
also addressed. Comprises 16 newly-commissioned essays written by a
distinguished group of contributors, including Slavoj Zizek and Frederic
Jameson Provides the historical, cultural, intellectual, and literary
contexts necessary to understand developments in realism Addresses the
artistic mediums and technologies such as painting and film that have
helped shape the way we perceive reality Explores literary and pictorial
sub-genres, such as naturalism and socialist realism Includes a brief
bibliography and suggestions for further reading at the end of each
section.

Sunday, June 29, 2014

A comprehensive overview of Slavoj Zizek's thought, including all of his
published works to date. Provides a solid basis in the work of an
engaging thinker and teacher whose ideas will continue to inform
philosophical, psychological, political, and cultural discourses well
into the future. Identifies the major currents in Zizek's thought,
discussing all of his works and providing a background in continental
philosophy and psychoanalytic theory necessary to its understanding.
Explores Zizek's growing popularity through his engagement in current
events, politics, and cultural studies. Pertains to a variety of fields,
including contemporary philosophy, psychology, cultural studies,
sociology, political science, esthetics, literary theory, film theory,
and theology.

The work of Henri Lefebvre – the only major French intellectual of the
post–war period to give extensive consideration to the city and urban
life – received considerable attention among both academics and
practitioners of the built environment following the publication in
English of The Production of Space. This new collection brings together,
for the first time in English, Lefebvre′s reflections on the city and
urban life written over a span of some twenty years. The selection of
writings is contextualized by an introduction – itself a significant
contribution to the interpretation of Henri Lefebvre′s work – which
places the material within the context of Lefebvre′s intellectual and
political life and times and raises pertinent issues as to their
relevance for contemporary debates over such questions as the nature of
urban reality, the production of space and modernity. Writings on
Cities is of particular relevance to architects, planners, geographers,
and those interested in the philosophical and political understanding of
contemporary life.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Articles from the early Soviet press on social and cultural issues in the struggle to forge new social relations. The advance of culture, Trotsky notes, requires an increasing level of scientific, technological, and industrial development to “free humanity from a dependence upon nature that is degrading”—a goal that can only be completed when social relationships are “free from mystery and do not oppress people.”

Cinema Wars explores the intersection of film, politics, and US culture and society through a bold critical analysis of the films, TV shows, and documentaries produced in the early 2000s. Offers a thought-provoking depiction of Hollywood film as a contested terrain between conservative and liberal forcesFilms and documentaries discussed include: Black Hawk Down, The Dark Knight, Star Wars, Syriana, WALL-E, Fahrenheit 9/11 and other Michael Moore documentaries, amongst others. Explores how some films in this era supported the Bush-Cheney regime, while others criticized the administration, openly or otherwise. Investigates Hollywood’s treatment of a range of hot topics, from terrorism and environmental crisis to the Iraq war and the culture wars of the 2000s. Shows how Hollywood film in the 2000s brought to life a vibrant array of social protest and helped create cultural conditions to elect Barack Obama.

Not in Our Genes makes a strong statement about the entanglement of science and politics: "Science is the ultimate legitimator of bourgeois ideology", and makes the following comparison "If biological determinism is a weapon in the struggle between classes, then the universities are weapons factories, and their teaching and research faculties are the engineers, designers, and production workers. Not in Our Genes described Dawkins as "the most reductionist of sociobiologists".

This book engages with the politics of social and environmental justice, and seeks new ways to think about the future of urbanization in the twenty-first century. It establishes foundational concepts for understanding how space, time, place and nature - the material frames of daily life - are constituted and represented through social practices, not as separate elements but in relation to each other. It describes how geographical differences are produced, and shows how they then become fundamental to the exploration of political, economic and ecological alternatives to contemporary life. The book is divided into four parts. Part I describes the problematic nature of action and analysis at different scales of time and space, and introduces the reader to the modes of dialectical thinking and discourse which are used throughout the remainder of the work. Part II examines how ''nature'' and ''environment'' have been understood and valued in relation to processes of social change and seeks, from this basis, to make sense of contemporary environmental issues. Part III, is a wide-ranging discussion of history, geography and culture, explores the meaning of the social ''production'' of space and time, and clarifies problems related to ''otherness'' and ''difference''. The final part of the book deploys the foundational arguments the author has established to consider contemporary problems of social justice that have resulted from recent changes in geographical divisions of labor, in the environment, and in the pace and quality of urbanization. Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference speaks to a wide readership of students of social, cultural and spatial theory and of the dynamics of contemporary life. It is a convincing demonstration that it is both possible and necessary to value difference and to seek a just social order.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Throughout his distinguished and influential career, David Harvey has defined and redefined the relationship among politics, capitalism, and the social aspects of geographical theory. Laying out Harvey's position that geography could not remain objective in the face of urban poverty and associated ills, Social Justice and the City is perhaps the most widely cited work in the field.

Harvey analyzes core issues in city planning and policy--employment and housing location, zoning, transport costs, concentrations of poverty--asking in each case about the relationship between social justice and space. How, for example, do built-in assumptions about planning reinforce existing distributions of income? Rather than leading him to liberal, technocratic solutions, Harvey's line of inquiry pushes him in the direction of a "revolutionary geography," one that transcends the structural limitations of existing approaches to space. Harvey's emphasis on rigorous thought and theoretical innovation gives the volume an enduring appeal. This is a book that raises big questions, and for that reason geographers and other social scientists regularly return to it.

These two notebooks were discovered while Philip Pomper was doing
research at Harvards Russian Research Center for a book on Trotsky,
Lenin and Stalin after the Russian Revolution and were published by
Columbia University for the first time in 1986. They present fascinating
new insights into Trotskys philosophy, politics, and psychology and
this volume is a significant addition to an understanding of his
revolutionary career. They shed new light on his relationship to Lenin
and Bolshevism, his criticism of dialectics and Darwin evolutionism, and
his reflections of Freudian psychology as he ponders the relationship
of the unconscious mind to the philosophical issues surrounding
dialectics. The original Russian text of the notebooks, prepared and
annotated by Felshtinsky, is also presented here to make the material
available to readers of Russian.

We've been told for years that the capitalist free market is a self-correcting perpetual growth machine in which sellers always find buyers, precluding any major crisis in the system. Then the credit crunch of August 2007 turned into the great crash of September–October 2008, leading one apologist for the system, Willem Buiter, to write of "the end of capitalism as we knew it."As the crisis unfolded, the world witnessed the way in which the runaway speculation of the "shadow" banking system wreaked havoc on world markets, leaving real human devastation in its wake. Faced with the financial crisis, some economic commentators began to talk of "zombie banks"–financial institutions that were in an "undead state" and incapable of fulfilling any positive function but a threat to everything else. What they do not realize is that twenty-first century capitalism as a whole is a zombie system, seemingly dead when it comes to achieving human goals.

This collection critically engages with a number of recurrent themes
from the work of G.A. Cohen, and most especially with arguments and
positions advanced in his Rescuing Justice and Equality.A critical
discussion of the work of the contemporary political theorist G.A.
Cohen, an egalitarian and a critic of John Rawls Offers a critical
perspective on his significant work on equality and constructivism,
including his eagerly anticipated new book Rescuing Justice and
Equality The contributors to this volume are noted for their own work on
these topics Challenges Cohen’s view of the centrality of equality to
justice, of the scope for free choice of occupation and economic
incentives, as well as his view that fundamental principles of justice
are insensitive to facts

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Written by renowned political philosopher Andrew Levine, Political
Keywords guides readers through today’s most commonly used- and misused-
political terminology.A much-needed dictionary of contemporary
political vernacular from “alienation” to “Zionism” Defines the most
important political keywords, i.e. the often-confusing (and sometimes
intentionally misleading) terms that are used to describe our politics
Refamiliarizes the reader with today’s most commonly used and misused
terms, thus clarifying the current political landscape Assumes no prior
academic background in politics Includes extensive cross-referencing,
suggested further readings, and acomprehensive glossary Provides the
ideal guide to navigating a landscape of dangerously vague terms.

The aim of this book is to introduce the philosophical thought of Immanuel Kant, especially to readers who are not yet familiar with it. What is most remarkable about the philosophy of Kant, in my opinion,is the wide range of topics on which his thoughts repay carefulstudy. In so many areas - not only in metaphysics but in natural science,history, morality, the critique of taste - he seems to have gone to the rootof the matter, and at least raised for us the fundamental issues, whetheror not we decide in the end that what he said about them is correct. Inhis brief, five-page essay on the question "What is Enlightenment?" forexample, he locates the essence of enlightenment not in learning or thecultivation of our intellectual powers but in the courage and resolve tothink for oneself, to emancipate oneself from tradition, prejudice, andevery form of authority that offers us the comfort and security of lettingsomeone else do our thinking for us. Kant's essay enables us to see thatthe issues raised by the challenge of the Enlightenment are still just asmuch with us as they were in the eighteenth century.

Provides an exciting approach to some of the most contentious issues in
discussions around globalization—bioscientific research, neoliberalism,
governance—from the perspective of the "anthropological" problems they
pose; in other words, in terms of their implications for how individual
and collective life is subject to technological, political, and ethical
reflection and intervention. Offers a ground-breaking approach to
central debates about globalization with chapters written by leading
scholars from across the social sciences. Examines a range of phenomena
that articulate broad structural transformations: technoscience,
circuits of exchange, systems of governance, and regimes of ethics or
values. Investigates these phenomena from the perspective of the
“anthropological” problems they pose. Covers a broad range of
geographical areas: Africa, the Middle East, East and South Asia, North
America, South America, and Europe. Grapples with a number of empirical
problems of popular and academic interest — from the organ trade, to
accountancy, to pharmaceutical research, to neoliberal reform.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

This book, part dictionary and part encyclopaedia, has become the standard reference work on the concepts of Marxism and the individuals and schools of thought that have subsequently contributed to the body of Marxist ideas. The dictionary has been fulled revised and updated, with over fifty new entries on major texts, on topics that have become relevant since the first edition appeared, and in areas where the state of knowledge and understanding has moved significantly. All entries have been revised where needed, all reading lists updated, and the bibliography has been completely revised and expanded.

Egypt's January 25 revolution was triggered by a Facebook page and played out both in virtual spaces and the streets. Social media serves as a space of liberation, but it also functions as an arena where competing forces vie over the minds of the young as they battle over ideas as important as the nature of freedom and the place of the rising generation in the political order. This book provides piercing insights into the ongoing struggles between people and power in the digital age.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

This book describes and explains the extraordinary wave of popular protest that swept across the so-called Third World and the countries of the former socialist bloc during the period from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, in response to the mounting debt crisis and the austerity measures widely adopted as part of economic "reform" and "adjustment". Explores this general proposition in a cross-national study of the austerity protests, or the 'IMF Riots' that have affected so many debtor nations since the mid-1970s. Argues that modern austerity protests, like the classical "bread riots" in eighteenth-century Europe are political acts aimed at injustice, but acts that are an integral part of the process of international economic and political restructuring. Evaluates how modern food riots are most important for what they reveal about global economic transformation and its social, and political, consequences. Provides a general framework (drawing on comparative and historical material) and then trace the cycle of uneven development, debt, neo-liberal reform, and protest in Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Focusses on the role of women in structural adjustment and protest politics and the features of seemingly anomalous cases which qualify the general argument.

This history traces the development of democracy in Europe from its origins in ancient Greece up to the present day.The book opens with the birth of democracy in ancient Greece, and outlines the adoption and adaptation of Greek political ideas by French revolutionaries and intellectuals to suit their own ends. The author then goes on to consider all the major watersheds in the development of democracy in modern Europe: the twenty-year crisis from 1789 to 1815, when the repercussions of revolution in France were felt across the continent; the explosion of democratic movements between 1830 and 1848; the hijacking of democratic processes by Napoleon III, and the débâcle of the Paris Commune. Canfora traces how the spread of Marxist ideas in east and west Europe, the Russian revolution, and the rise of fascism led to a "European civil war" lasting from 1914 until 1945.In conclusion, the book demonstrates how in the recent past democracy itself, far from making progress, has in fact become more limited and oligarchic, as indeed it was at the outset, 2,500 years ago.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Dubbed 'the poster girl of Palestinian militancy', Leila Khaled's image flashed across the world after she hijacked a passenger jet in 1969. The picture of a young, determined looking woman with a checkered scarf, clutching an AK-47, was as era-defining as that of Che Guevara. In this intimate profile, based on interviews with Khaled and those who know her, Sarah Irving gives us the life-story behind the image. Key moments of Khaled's turbulent life are explored, including the dramatic events of the hijackings, her involvement in the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (a radical element within the PLO), her opposition to the Oslo peace process and her activism today. Leila Khaled's example gives unique insights into the Palestinian struggle through one remarkable life – from the tension between armed and political struggle, to the decline of the secular left and the rise of Hamas, and the role of women in a largely male movement.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

This important Manifesto argues that we still need a concept of society in order to make sense of the forces which structure our lives. Written by leading social theorist William Outhwaite Asks if the notion of society is relevant in the twenty-first century Goes to the heart of contemporary social and political debate Examines critiques of the concept of society from neoliberals, postmodernists, and globalization theorists

Sunday, June 1, 2014

In the classic tradition of the philosopher–activist, Daniel Bensaid tells the story of a life deeply entwined with the history of both the French and the international Left. From his family bistro in a staunchly red neighborhood of Toulouse to the founding of the Jeunesses communistes revolutionnaires in the 1960s, from the joyous explosion of May 1968 to the painful experience of defeat in Latin America, from the re-reading of Marx to the "Marrano" trail, Bensaid relates a life of ideological and practical struggle in which he unflinchingly sought to understand capitalism without ever succumbing to its temptations.

An unprecedented and judicious examination of what the Holocaust means—and doesn't mean—in the Arab world, one of the most explosive subjects of our time. There is no more inflammatory topic than the Arabs and the Holocaust—the phrase alone can occasion outrage. The terrain is dense with ugly claims and counterclaims: one side is charged with Holocaust denial, the other with exploiting a tragedy while denying the tragedies of others. In this pathbreaking book, political scientist Gilbert Achcar explores these conflicting narratives and considers their role in today's Middle East dispute. He analyzes the various Arab responses to Nazism, from the earliest intimations of the genocide, through the creation of Israel and the destruction of Palestine and up to our own time, critically assessing the political and historical context for these responses. Finally, he challenges distortions of the historical record, while making no concessions to anti-Semitism or Holocaust denial. Valid criticism of the other, Achcar insists, must go hand in hand with criticism of oneself.Drawing on previously unseen sources in multiple languages, Achcar offers a unique mapping of the Arab world, in the process defusing an international propaganda war that has become a major stumbling block in the path of Arab-Western understanding.